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dam-l Asmal moves to Education from Water/LS
SA's new president Thabo Mbeki has appointed his new cabinet. Kader Asmal
has been appointed to the head of the Ministry of Education, and the new
head of Dept. of Water Affairs and Forestry is Ronnie Kasrils. Below are
profiles of each minister from the Daily Mail and Guardian.
Kader Asmal
Portfolio: Education
Formerly: Water Affairs and Forestry
Minister of water affairs and forestry. Has had remarkable
success despite the onset of enervating
illness. Intelligent and hard worker, recommended by many
for the post of "minister of everything". A
graduate of the London School of Economics, he set up the
anti-apartheid movement in Ireland and
worked with SA Non-Racial Olympic Committee and the
International and Defence and AID Fund.
Was distinguished legal academic before returning from 27
years in exile.
A member of the African National Congress's National
Executive Committee, Asmal, aged 65, also
chairs the party's disciplinary committee. Placed at
number four on the ANC's national election list,
showing that ability actually to deliver counts for votes
in the ruling party. But will be tested by the
huge challenge of getting the country's rickety education
system functioning efficiently enough to keep
poorly-paid teachers working and students passing learning.
From the A to Z of South African Politics 1999:
As Minister of Forestry and Water Affairs, Kader Asmal has
in four years almost certainly achieved
more than any previous holder of the portfolio. He was a
candidate for the post of Minister of Housing
when Joe Slovo died, and one
wonders what might have been achieved had he been given
that rather more high-profile portfolio.
He was born in Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal, into a family of
eight children; his father was a shopkeeper.
He came into contact with the Congress movement in 1953,
after arriving in Durban to do a teacher's
diploma.
In 1959, he went overseas to study law,
graduating in 1963 from the London School of
Economics. His political profile prohibited his
returning to South Africa, but it did not stop him
from being a founder of the anti-apartheid
movement in Ireland, where he spent 27 years
lecturing in human rights, labour and international
law at Trinity College, Dublin. He also worked for
the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee
and the International Defence and Aid Fund. He
participated in Palestinian and Northern Irish civil
rights campaigns and served on international legal
commissions, while compiling and publishing
reports for the United Nations and other
international organisations. In 1983 his human
rights work won him the Prix Unesco.
He returned to South Africa in September 1990,
joining the University of the Western Cape and
chairing the council of the University of the North.
Working on the national executive committee of
the ANC, he was number 22 on the ANC's list for
the National Assembly, and was appointed
Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry in May
1994.
Asmal has set about bringing water to those long
deprived of it with a passion that is perhaps born
from a long-repressed wish to turn his academic
and activist drive for human rights to delivery. He
has not been discomforted by an executive role.
His staff speak enthusiastically of his work ethic --
he works till at least 7pm, even on returning from
draining overseas trips, and expects those around
him to do the same.
Added to his portfolio are his membership of the Cabinet
committee for security and intelligence, his
leadership of the National Conventional Arms Control
Committee, and his role in drafting a code of
conduct for ANC office-holders, and membership of the
ANC's disciplinary committee.
As often happens, realpolitik has tarnished the idealist.
Faced with justifying the supply of pilotless
reconnaissance drones to Libya, Asmal has been less than
convincing -- inevitable, perhaps, when a
man primarily passionate about human rights is called upon
to justify the arms industry. However, he
has done good work in drafting anti-mercenary laws that
helped put Executive Outcomes out of
business.
His lucidity and eloquence make him the minister whose
speeches are least likely to put you to sleep; he
knows what he is talking about, and gets to the point
mercifully quickly, avoiding the standard-issue
slow monotone beloved of South African politicians old and
new.
Asmal is not a populist. In 1995 he weighed in on the side
of those who supported retaining the
Springbok as the emblem of the national rugby team. A
conciliatory move it may have been, but not one
likely to win black support. Nor was his decision in late
1998 to evict a 900-strong squatter community
from the Ntendeka wilderness area in KwaZulu-Natal. More
intellectual than emotional, he said that in
the new combined national anthem Die Stem, the anthem of
apartheid, now "nestles confidently
alongside" the liberation hymn Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.
Faced with the mud of bureaucracy on arriving in office,
Asmal preferred washing it out to wallowing
in it -- he gave his top officials quick notice that a
snail's pace would not be acceptable in his department
and that arguments should be firmly focused on "how"
rather than "why".
There are suggestions that he lacks "the common touch",
but his passion for his work only makes sense
if one believes he cares deeply for those who stand to
benefit. Still, he is a master of the quick retort
and relishes robust argument, which he
usually wins. Thus a group of Alexandra residents who
opposed a phase of the Lesotho Highlands
water project ended up
applying anonymously to the World Bank for it to be
blocked, saying they were intimidated by a letter
he sent them.
Asmal's passion for his portfolio flows directly from his
philosophy. Arguing for strong guarantees of
social and economic rights in the new Constitution, he
made it clear that he regards access to water as
being at least as vital as the franchise.
In late 1998 it was revealed that Asmal was suffering from
bone cancer, but would remain in his post.
He was born on 8 October 1934.
Ronnie Kasrils
Portfolio: Water Affairs and Forestry
Formerly: Deputy Defence Minister
Was great help to his former Defence minister, Joe Modise.
Thoroughly deserves promotion. Oversaw
security operation in KwaZulu-Natal that delivered a
peaceful election there on June 2. Has
energetically defended proposed R27-billion
arms-for-investment deal. Good communicator, who
usually commands affection and loyalty among those who
have worked with him. Has overcome
failure of judgment when he led marchers into gunfire in
Ciskei homeland in early 1990s. Former head
of ANC military intelligence. One of the leaders in the
late1980s of Operation Vula, aimed at situating
an ANC leadership securely inside South Africa. Received
military training in the Soviet Union after
going into exile in 1963.
From the A to Z of South African Politics 1999:
Hard-working, charming and endearing, the "Yeoville
boytjie", as he calls himself, seems to have won
over his former enemies in the South African National
Defence Force (SANDF) with ease.
One reason is that he shares the passion of the officer
class for expensive weapons: he seems to have
had little difficulty in defending the government's
R29,7-billion arms-for-investment deal.
And the devotion to duty the Deputy Minister of
Defence has displayed since his appointment in
1994 tends to compensate for the poor
performance of his minister, Joe Modise, a man
not known for his love of hard work. Modise has
announced that he will retire at the end of his term,
and Kasrils could well get his job.
Kasrils has also taken with gusto to the cultural
pastimes of many high-ranking military men --
watching rugby, for example, and participating in
shooting competitions. It makes a certain kind of
sense: Kasrils was, after all, the founder and head
of Umkhonto weSizwe's military intelligence
wing; he was willing, during his years as a
commissar, to share the privations of the camps;
he returned illegally to South Africa in 1989 to risk
his neck as a leader, with Mac Maharaj, of
Operation Vula. His ability to evade the security
forces for months (described in his autobiography,
Armed and Dangerous) won him great popularity
among ANC cadres. He has been described as a
street-fighter with a taste for adventure -- not a bad
background for getting along with the military.
Born in Yeoville, Johannesburg, he was an
articled clerk, a scriptwriter and an advertising
copywriter before joining the ANC in 1960 and
the South African Communist Party in 1961. He
left the country in 1963, training in the Soviet
Union and running operations throughout
southern Africa as a member of the MK high
command. During multi-party negotiations, he was prominent
on the team working out the details of
integrating MK with SADF forces.
Kasrils was born on 15 November 1938.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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